The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In a video interview, author James Howard Kunstler talks about peak oil, the effect of Mexican drug gangs on America's oil supply, and the diminishing returns of new oil-extracting technologies.

February 6 - MaxKeiser.com

Neither technology nor infrastructure shows any limit for how big or how fast cities can grow and more megacities are on the horizon, according to this piece from Richard Dobbs and Jaana Remes.

February 6 - What Matters

Waste-to-energy power plant, and ski slope? Architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) proposed the unusual idea for a competition to replace a power plant in Copenhagen -- and won.

February 5 - Metropolis Magazine

With GPS technology ubiquitous, the lighthouse perched high on a cliff may soon become a relic.

February 5 - CNN

The Vauban District in southern Germany is a small community built around a green transportation scheme, but it has become much more: a model of cooperative decision-making, sustainability and eco-planning.

February 5 - The Cereplast Blog

The decade-long plan for a proposed bus-only lane on Wilshire Blvd. faces yet another political battle as politicians relent to public complaints.

February 5 - The Los Angeles Times

New Songdo City in South Korea is the model for new cities, according to Greg Lindsay and John D. Kasarda, who argue that its airport is its most important element.

February 5 - What Matters

Apparently in the horror first-person shooter videogame F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin for XBox, you can win a special "City Planner" achievement by -- blowing stuff up.

February 4 - YouTube

Haya El Nasser at USA Today suggests that "smart growth" is showing its age, and will go the way of the dustbin along with "urban renewal." Meanwhile, "intelligent cities" is the new hot jargon word.

February 4 - USA Today

An environmental watchdog group reveals that funds from New York's Brownfield Cleanup Program are not going to clean up the lower-income communities they were intended to help.

February 4 - readMedia

We've got more commercial strip development than we can handle, says Edward T. MacMahon of ULI, and the economy is restructuring the retail landscape away from the strip.

February 4 - Citiwire.net

Developers are planning a push into the Great White North with an (until now) distinctly American product - the outlet center.

February 4 - Retail Traffic Magazine

Bus rapid transit is growing in popularity throughout the world, though implementation is lacking in the U.S.

February 4 - THE DIRT

The famous district in Manhattan may finally get the special status needed to provide more services to its residents and businesses.

February 4 - The Wall Street Journal

More than $200 billion worth of projects are either planned or underway in Qatar, and nearly half of them are infrastructure.

February 4 - Gulf Times

The Oglala Lakota community hopes plans to boost development will come to fruition after the Housing and Urban Development approves a grant.

February 4 - The Huffington Post

Over the past ten years, the city of New Orleans has lost nearly a third of its population, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

February 4 - USA Today

Building megacities needs to be a multidisciplinary effort, according to architect and designer Sean C. S. Chiao.

February 3 - What Matters

The Dutch Water Line is a floodable defense system built in the 16th Century in the Netherlands. Hundreds of bunkers were built during World War II, but now sit unused. A design firm has constructed a walkway right through the middle of one.

February 3 - Icon

BLOG POST

<p> In this lavishly produced, beautifully illustrated but somewhat self-edifying book, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales argues that most of our global crises -- from climate change to poverty to our soulless built environments -- are owed to our disconnection from Nature (which he capitalizes).

February 3 - Michael Dudley